“I was jogging up the court, playing with the dudes, like I usually did, and he just fell, collapsed,” she said. “I thought he was playing at first.”

Homer wasn’t, and died from complications from an enlarged heart at the age of 15, with his 11-year-old baby sister standing by his side.

The MSU women’s basketball team (17-10 overall, 9-5 Big Ten) will host No. 23 Nebraska (20-6, 9-5) at 7 p.m. for Senior Day, and as Johnson steps on the Breslin Center floor to be recognized in the final home game of her illustrious career, there’s no doubt the brother that taught her the game will be on her mind.

For Homer
Growing up in Chicago, Johnson was the youngest of four children and always was treated as the baby of the family.

Although she’s now known for her size and athleticism, Johnson said it wasn’t always that way.

“I was this short, 5-foot-2, chubby kid playing around with boys in our church gym,” she said. “I didn’t ever want to play basketball. I was like, ‘No, that’s a man’s sport,’ but after (my brother died), it just changed my whole momentum.”

Johnson said it took a couple days for the loss of her brother to sink in, and the loss sparked her to pursue the passion her brother had instilled within her.

“It just changed my perspective on life — it’s short,” she said. “He was a great person to me, a great leader to me, and he actually taught me everything. … He is my motivation.”

With her brother’s memory as inspiration, Johnson became one of the top high school players in the country and committed to a scholarship offer from former MSU head coach Joanne P. McCallie.

But on April 18, 2007 McCallie was hired by Duke, leaving Johnson to talk with her fellow recruits about trying to learn about new head coach Suzy Merchant.

“My whole mindset was to stay with the people they recruited me with and playing with them,” she said. “After the coaching change, Coach Merchant was in Chicago, she was in Toronto, she was in Kalamazoo, trying to round us up and say … ‘We believe in you guys and … we can win a Big Ten championship,’ and from that day forward, we were just all in.”

Merchant said Johnson’s talent was obvious from the beginning.

“Her tenacity to get (rebounds) offensively and defensively is special,” Merchant said. “It’s interesting; as aggressive of a player she is, she’s pretty soft-spoken in some ways, and I just think she has a way of talking to (players) to help them get through struggles both on and off the court.”

Learning to lead
Johnson battled her own struggles in her first year on campus after being ruled academically ineligible to play, and the forward leaned on her fellow freshmen to help her through the time.

“Being academically ineligible — it was tough,” she said. “I was still taking classes, still being around the girls, still trying to be involved, … (but) sitting out, you couldn’t help your team. You couldn’t be there for them.”

Fellow senior Porschè Poole said Johnson’s extra year, combined with the lessons she learned from former forwards Kalisha Keane and Cetera Washington and former point guard Brittney Thomas have helped this year’s team grow.

“We’ve been here for four years together (and) Lykendra’s been here for five, so she’s definitely got that maturity, that mother role,” Poole said. “When everything gets bad, she brings us all together. … Kalisha, Cetera and Brittney helped lead her in the right way, and we’re just trying to follow her role.”

Team mom to ‘mommy’
The role of team mom took on special meaning for Johnson in August 2011, when she and former men’s basketball player Delvon Roe had their daughter Destinie Roe.

Seeing her friend balance motherhood and basketball is something Poole said she’s blown away by, and added that it’s their shared ability to overcome any challenge that unites them.

“The things she’s doing right now after coming back from a baby is crazy, and I respect her so much for that,” Poole said. “She’s just a great person, and perseverance by both of us has definitely made us strong this year.”

Johnson will leave MSU as one of the greatest players in program history, ranking second all-time in rebounds and is the only Spartan and one of five Big Ten athletes with at least 1,000 career points, 900 rebounds, 200 steals and 100 blocks.

But despite all of her success on the court — including being named Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year last season — Merchant said her senior’s legacy will be her impact on others.

“I think a little bit of Lykendra will be left in every kid she played with, in that she carries herself with a kind heart,” Merchant said. “She’s kind of like the mom on the team, and she’s always been that way.”

Admittedly her toughest critic, Johnson said she’s proud of what she’s accomplished — including becoming the first girl in her family to receive a college degree from an out-of-state school — and credits the coach she didn’t originally know with helping her succeed.

“She believed in me,” Johnson said of Merchant. “That was the whole big thing. Never doubted me once in my career and still hasn’t.”

And as she gets ready to leave MSU and start a new chapter of her life, either as a professional basketball player or running a daycare, Johnson said she hopes one message is left with her returning teammates.

“I give myself a hard time, but I’m very proud of myself for overcoming every obstacle and sticking to what I love,” she said “I just want to leave that everything is a challenge, and you’ve got to believe in yourself and anything is possible.”